"His ex-wife, Gina Seau, of Fairbanks Ranch, said that on Tuesday he texted her and each of their three children separate messages: 'I love you.' "

Police say they did not find a note from the 43-year-old Seau, who it appears shot himself in the chest Wednesday morning at his beachside home near San Diego.

According to our colleagues at KPBS, "an autopsy could shed more light on the death — an examination which may be completed as early as Thursday, the county Medical Examiner's Office said."

There is, as noted Wednesday, already speculation about whether Seau may have been suffering from depression. He killed himself the same way that former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson took his life last year.

Duerson asked that his brain be studied for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. As NPR's Tom Goldman said on Morning Edition, a subsequent study revealed that Duerson did indeed have brain disease — something that many older and retired football players fear because of the repeated blows to the head they suffer over their careers.